Using a Graduate Student Developed Trajectory Generation Program to Facilitate Undergraduate Spacecraft/Mission Capstone Design Projects

摘要

A major stumbling block in undergraduate spacecraft/mission design projects is the early generation of plausible baseline trajectories for missions outside of Earth orbit. Many student teams rely almost totally on the literature for their baseline trajectories, and often do not progress very far beyond these trajectories in their final designs. The problem is that trajectory design for interplanetary missions has many options and senior aerospace engineering students have neither the experience nor the time to explore the options thoroughly.